Raoul Moat's family criticised police today for refusing several offers to help "talk down" the fugitive during a six-hour standoff with police which ended with Moat apparently fatally shooting himself in the neck.

Angus Moat, the former Newcastle bouncer's brother, said police had declined his offer to help, while their uncle, Charles Alexander, also asked police to be allowed to go to the cordon to aid negotiations with his nephew as police in Rothbury surrounded him at the climax of a week-long manhunt involving 15 forces.

Angus Moat, from Gateshead, said he had "drifted apart" from his brother, who is suspected of shooting his ex-girlfriend, murdering her boyfriend and shooting a police officer, but he said: "I was willing to walk into the cordon with no flak jacket and try to talk to Raoul to calm him down. But the police told me that sending me in could make the situation more volatile."

During the standoff Raoul Moat, was heard saying: "Nobody cares about me."

Angus Moat was interviewed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which will consider the offers of help from the family as part of its investigation and will also look at the use of Tasers by police.

Moat killed himself with a sawn-off shotgun at 1.15am on Saturday, prompting concern that use of the stun guns may have induced a muscle spasm which caused him to pull the trigger as he held the shotgun to his head.

The family said the official postmortem into his death made no mention of the stun guns and said they were considering asking for a second independent examination. Angus Moat said the use of Tasers could have caused "involuntarily contractions" to the 37-year-old's muscles as he held the gun. "Perhaps those Tasers, rather than stopping him taking his own life, may have caused it", he said.

Northumbria police have said two officers shot the fugitive with a Taser, thought to be at close range, during the final stages of the standoff with police negotiators.

Relatives, who asked not to be named, said they were "angry" and had "big concerns" that there was no mention anywhere in the report of any marks on Moat's body specifically linked to an injury from the electric stun guns, which fire 50,000-volt darts.

An IPCC source said: "We need to see where the Tasers fitted into the overall tactics they were using."

Another area that IPCC sources said would be covered by the inquiry was whether the police involved were equipped with other "non-lethal" weapons such as rubber bullets and, if so, why they were not used. Investigators are expected to begin taking statements from armed officers involved in the shooting this week as they try to piece together Moat's final moments.

Eric Pickles, the communities secretary said it was essential to understand the profound pressure that the police were operating under during the tragic finale of the hunt for a man who had declared war on the police in a letter found during the search for him.

Pickles said: "I do have sympathy for officers crawling through the undergrowth in the night towards somebody who has a shotgun."

He added that Taser incidents ended "by and large peacefully".

Yet, despite controversy since their introduction in Britain in 2003, Northumbria police have resorted to their use more frequently than any other police force in the country.

The predominantly rural force reported more incidents involving stun guns than the Metropolitan police, which covers a population more than five times bigger.

Between April 2004 and August 2009, the force, which covers a population of about 1.4 million people, had recorded 704 incidents in which a Taser was used in some way, even if it was only aimed.

By contrast, the Metropolitan police, covering a population of 7.4 million, recorded 700 Taser incidents over the same period.

The IPCC is also looking at the failure of Northumbria police to act on information from Durham prison that Raoul Moat was a possible danger to his former partner Samantha Stobbart, 22, killing her boyfriend, Chris Brown, 20, at her mother's home in Gateshead.

He then shot and critically injured PC David Rathband, 42, as the policeman sat in a patrol car several miles away at East Denton.